Spring 2016 | First Summits of the Season on Manaslu and Cho Oyu / Update-2

At least ten climbers reached the [edit: false] summit of Manaslu, earlier today (Trivia: precisely 60 years after first ascent of the mountain by Toshio Imanishi and Gyalzen Norbu). More ascents are expected as some teams are still on the mountain. On Cho Oyu, bad weather thwarted summit-bids, this weekend. The teams are expecting another summit window later this week.

Manaslu
Dutch Korps Mariniers team launched their second summit-bid on May 5th. It’s a large expedition supported by Sherpa. Over the past five days, climbers and Sherpa worked on different sections of the mountain. Group of climbers have been spread all over the mountain from C1 to C4 – rope fixing team, the main summit-bid party and others for filming the ascent. Ten members of team finally topped out [false summit] this morning.

“Mission accomplished, 7 RNLMC ML's, 3 Sherpa's at summit at 08.30am,” expedition leader Mike Lima tweeted. The team had launched the summit push from C4 at around 02:00am local time.

The Slovak-Romanian team is also on the mountain. Having left BC on 7th, they reached C2 (6700m) yesterday. Peter Hamor, Horia Colibasanu and Michal Gabriš are climbing the normal route for acclimatization, before full North Ridge traverse attempt in alpine style.

Manaslu offered substantial resistance to climbers this season. Overall bad conditions and adverse weather denied a couple of summit attempts. In first summit push, Dutch Korps Mariniers team was forced to turn back from 7200m. In another attempt, Slovak-Romanian couldn’t go beyond C1.

[Edit 13/5/16: As per summit photo shared by team and there-on comments from mountaineering historians, the team only reached False summit of Manaslu. Thus, they may not be awarded 'Manaslu ascent' status. We will let you know, if there is anything further on this.]

Romanian Adrian Valean intended to go for summit a day later. However, he could only reach C2 in white-out conditions. Strong wind, clouds and poor visibility meant there wasn’t any chance of summiting.

A new summit window is predicted on May 13th and 14th. Thomas Lammle says, his team will be leaving ABC for C1, tomorrow.

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Update 01 (09-May-16) / Cho Oyu Summit:-
As per information from Summit-Climb team, one member of expedition David Roeske reached the summit of Cho Oyu on May 7th. Apparently, he is the only climber to reach the summit. David climbed without bottled oxygen, in 12hr summit push from C2 to summit and six hours for return journey. He is now back in ABC.

[Edit 13/5/16: Four climbers David Roeske, Robin Trygg, Nikolaus Gruber and Chhiring Sherpa reached the top on May 7th.] These are the first summits of the season on Cho Oyu.

Update 02 (10-May-16) / Manaslu Summit Push:-
(Edited) As per message from Horia Colibasanu's home team, Slovak-Romanian team is on summit push today. Peter Hamor, Horia Colibasanu and Michal Gabriš started the ascent from BC on July 7th. They were in C2 (6700m) by Sunday. The trio reached 7100m yesterday and launched the summit push at night.

While summiting an 8000m peak is a major achievement, for Peter, Horia and Michal, this ascent via normal route will be a step towards a bigger goal. They will be heading for alpine style traverse of full North Ridge of mountain.

Update 03 (10-May-16) / Manaslu Summit
Peter Hamor and Horia Colibasanu reached the summit at around 1PM local time, today.